Birth Story

I’ve been writing this story in my head for the last 12 weeks but couldn’t bring myself to actually get the words down. Now it is harder to remember some of the details! Here we go.

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I had an uneventful pregnancy. At the halfway mark, I was convinced I’d have gestational diabetes because I love carbs. In the first trimester, I could really only stomach processed starchy snacks. I also ate an entire bag of pretzel goldfish the night before the test and was convinced I had spiked my blood sugar beyond repair. Nope. I passed with flying colors! This body is used to processing junk.

You might recall that I decided to start grad school when I was 35 weeks pregnant. Would not recommend it! I had class Monday through Thursday from 4 to 8pm. I was SO tired. I also hated being “the pregnant girl.” But c'est la vie. I signed up for this madness! If I ever feel strong enough, I might write more about my grad school and birth experience, but I'm not sure I have it in me.

When we had our 36-week prenatal visit at our house, our midwife heard an extra heartbeat - an arrhythmia. We freaked out. They told us not to worry, this was not uncommon and would likely be benign. We scheduled an ultrasound of his heart (an echocardiogram) 48 hours later. The next two days of waiting were excruciating.

The following day, just 30 minutes before my doula was supposed to arrive for her in-home visit, she called to let me know she was having surgery and could not be my doula. This was not ideal. She was having preventative surgery for a very legitimate reason and would be more than 3 hours away around the time of my due date. She said she had reached out to other doulas in her network and would see if one could meet with me.

I told her I was feeling stressed from the recent heart update and she made things…much worse. She said her son also had a heart condition and that it was not bad - he just had to visit a doctor X times a year (I don’t remember the exact details). I started to black out because the only response I wanted was “That’s hard.” She went on and on about how we would be able to manage his condition. I stammered “But we don’t even know if he has a condition, was your son’s arrhythmia benign?” She then started grilling me on what exactly the heart specialist had said. I told her we hadn’t seen a specialist yet and we were dealing with limited information. All I knew was that he had an arrhythmia! I hung up the phone feeling deflated. I had been so confident. It had been such an uneventful pregnancy! Now at crunch time, everything was falling apart.

Before the appointment, we were beyond nervous. A heart problem? That was serious! Of course, I went on Reddit and convinced myself that I had caused the arrhythmia by drinking a daily cup of coffee. Reddit is my best friend/worst enemy. When I was feeling physically drained, it provided me with so much solace and solidarity. When I was feeling anxious, it heightened my fears 10x!

Luckily, the woman in charge of the heart center is a literal angel. I’m crying just thinking about her. She is like a warm hug personified. She treated us with such care and said we did not need to worry. Yes, he was experiencing PAC’s (premature atrial contractions), but they are benign 99% of the time and usually go away during the first couple of days of life. I wanted to squeeze her!

We also met with a new backup doula who was a much better fit. She was calm and sweet. She made me feel much more at ease. Everything would be okay! I could still have the homebirth of my dreams!

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I stopped being able to run once I hit my third trimester but we continued to walk regularly. I live in a beautiful part of town that backs up to the national forest, but it is very hilly. Throughout my pregnancy, my neighbors would yell as I walked by, “Don’t walk up hills, it’ll send you into labor!” When I asked if this was their experience while pregnant they muttered, “Oh I don’t remember.” I love unsolicited advice!

When my due date came and went, we tried to take matters into our own hands. Here’s a preview:

• Curb walking. I looked like a lunatic straddling the curb as I walked, with one foot on the curb and the other in the street.

• Acupressure. I made my husband press down on all of the suggested pressure points regularly throughout the day.

• Acupuncture. I had two appointments after I passed my due date.

• Raspberry leaf tea. I was drinking as much as possible.

• Dates. No one has ever eaten so many dates.

• The miles circuit. This is a set of ridiculous stretches and positions to encourage the baby to drop. I was essentially standing on my head, plopped over from the couch. No movement!

• I consumed evening primrose oil, nasty tinctures, spicy food - nada!

Doing this while 283 days pregnant looks slightly more insane

My doula kept reminding me to relax! Do you know how hard it is to relax when you are a beached whale and you can barely sleep? My nose was completely congested so I had to mouth breathe. I had to sleep on each side and felt like a rotisserie chicken rotating back and forth. I WAS OVER IT.

Eventually, my doula asked what the plan was if we got to 42 weeks. I didn’t know and did not want to find out. My midwives said the deadline was 42 weeks and 2 days otherwise, I’d have to have a hospital birth. Come on, my boy!

41 weeks and 6 days came around. I was at a very low point and decided I wanted Chipotle for dinner! We ordered online and my sweet husband picked it up and brought it home. The bag said Kendall but the bowl said Aaron G!! I was devastated, but more importantly, I was angry. I messaged UberEats and they were no help. I called Chipotle and they could not have cared less. So I did the logical thing and took out my frustration on my poor innocent husband. He could not take it and promptly re-ordered and drove back to the restaurant. He eventually convinced Chipotle to remake my bowl at no cost but it was a battle!

I had paid for steak and guac, not chicken and hot red sauce!! UGH

Our running joke is that my Chipotle rage sent me into labor. To pass the time, we had been watching comedies from the 2000’s, including Forgetting Sarah Marshall, 22 Jump Street, Old School and The 40 Year Old Virgin.

We watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall, 22 Jump Street, Old School and 40 Year Old Virgin. No we did not watch Knocked Up. We did watch Baby Mama (lol).

That night, we had just finished watching “40 Year Old Virgin” and I was joyously dancing to the final dance scene (Age of Aquarius) when stuff started happening.

In 2023, I ran 3 marathons, qualified for the Boston Marathon, and participated on an ultra relay team. I thought I was tough and built for this. I told people that I could not wait to experience labor. HAHA.

Looking back, I was probably in “early labor” while we watched the movie. I was feeling sort of crampy. But things got very real very fast. At 10pm my husband texted our birth team that we thought I was finally in labor. My doula said she was going to try to go to bed to get some sleep before she was truly needed. LOL. At 11:45 pm, I demanded that she come over. I needed her!

As a reminder, I had only met this woman once a few weeks prior. As soon as she showed up, I told her what I had been telling (yelling at) my husband for the last hour:

FORGET THE HOME BIRTH PLAN. I NEED DRUGS. THIS IS INSANE. I WANT TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL!!!

She calmly nodded and raised an eyebrow at my husband. He shrugged and said, “She’s been saying this repeatedly.”

How was this so difficult? How have women been doing this for centuries!? This is NUTZO!!

My husband called our midwives at 12:15 am and they said to keep calm and carry on. IMPOSSIBLE!

I tried listening to the playlist I had made for birth. I put on my fancy Bose headphones and expected to be calm. WRONG! I was like “Get these giant things off my head! This music is not helping!”

I skipped through songs until I got to something more upbeat and it was Anderson Paak’s song called “Drugs.” I had not realized that if you are having an unmedicated home birth you should not add a song to the playlist exclusively about doing drugs. I wailed that I WANTED THE DRUGS!! My doula suggested we skip the song…

At some point, my water broke while I was laboring on the toilet. I vaguely remember experiencing a pop and a fluid gush. I have no clue what time this was and I was not lucid enough to inspect the fluid to confirm. I threw up the Chipotle…

My husband called the midwives again at 2:30 am to have them head over but I do not know when they actually arrived. All of these timestamps are from looking at phone records.

Meanwhile my husband was stressed about his job: filling the birthtub. Naturally we ran out of hot water shortly after he started filling the tub. This meant he had to get out all of our large pots and start boiling them on the stovetop. Then he had to carry these giant pots filled with boiling water across the living room and dump them into the tub - all while dodging our dog and numerous obstacles such as my inflatable birth ball.

My doula said I was her most silent laboring mother which is kind of funny and surprising. I complained between every contraction but during them, I went inward. After a while, I remembered what my pelvic floor therapist said and started to bear down while sitting on the ball. This really helped me get through the contractions.

Getting into the birthtub was euphoric. I love hot tubs and stay in for hours until I become a giant prune. Being unable to hot tub during pregnancy was torture! I would take lukewarm baths but when you are a beached whale and barely fit in the tub, it does not hit the same as a normal hot tub session.

Per my labor records, IV fluids were recommended at 4:30 am. I think this was because his heartbeat was starting to decelerate. I was also likely dehydrated from all of the puking. An hour later after IV fluids, his fetal heart tones returned to baseline and I felt better.

Per the notes:
6 am: “Mother is stating she can’t do it anymore and wants to go to the hospital. Doula, Father, and Midwives are trying to talk her through contractions.”

6:15 am: “Mother keeps stating she’s done and doesn’t want to be home any longer.”

What a big baby I was!

At 7 am, my midwife said she’d recheck me. We had agreed that if I was not progressing, I could go to the hospital. Turns out I was 9cm dilated and 90% effaced! Thank goodness it was almost over!

My contractions had started to become further apart and it was recommended that I leave the tub and try different positions. At this point, my hips felt like they had been set on fire. No position provided any relief.

I have no clue what happened (a recurring theme) from 7 am on. We moved to the bed for guided pushing. This helped so much! My midwife would put pressure with her hands to help me know where to concentrate my efforts. I remember yelling as I pushed, which I think assumed was normal since it happens in all of the movies (even though I knew movies were wrong in how they depict labor). My midwife told me to try not to yell out and to focus all my attention on pushing. This really helped!

Somehow 4 hours passed, and the most beautiful (9 pound!) baby boy was born at 10:57 am! Our birth photographer ended up making us a little birth video in addition to taking photos. We recently received the video! I cry every time I watch it. She included some raw footage of the actual moment he was born. He didn’t cry immediately! I told my midwives to help him but they were not concerned. When he finally did cry it was the cutest little noise I’ve ever heard.

Birth is wild. Post-birth is gnarly so I am going to stop here before I get too emotional. Not sure if I’ll ever be strong/open enough to post what happened shortly after he was born.